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Valve's goal for VR - surpassing "immersion" with true presence inside gameworld

syko de4d

Member
I feel like we are going to be seeing 20k+ VR setups in the future

In like 2020 many People could start to have a room just for VR. In there is a quad sli high end pc (300tflop power), a floor working as a big treadmill, 4 cams around you to track everything you do, maybe you can wear somethings that is connected with some machines to simulate haptic/force feedback??, something that simulates wind, maybe something that can simulate scents??

I think the hardest and most important thing for VR in the future will be to give Feedback if you touch something inside the VR. No idea how to realize that in a good and usable way.
 

UnrealEck

Member
So with Oculus, does the GPU(s) render two instances of the game to display independantly or is it just the one and is copied to each eye?
 

rjinaz

Member
Always been a console only kinda guy, but VR is gonna change that. I'll be building a PC when oculus retail version drops.

I'm conflicted because I really want to own the OR, but I really don't want to have to buy a gaming PC. Sony, you're my only hope at this point.

Reading this thread about where VR is heading as me drooling either way.
 

spekkeh

Banned
What subset is that, though? I think you need a bit more specific analysis of that group of people and who they are before you go telling us that this is not ready for mainstream. Just saying that some people 'could still' have issues is pretty unscientific without at least a minimum amount of relevant research to support the notion.

Many of your points have been proven wrong so far and yet you're still sticking to your guns. I understand scepticism, believe me. But there comes a point where it feels far more like stubbornness than rational disbelief. And I think you've crossed that line a while ago.
I have already said why though; vection due to, among others, peripheral motion and an inherent mismatch between the vestibular system and proprioception, not unlike other types of motion sickness (also a difference between internal and external FOV but this could be fixed in the future; women are also more prone to this because they have a wider FOV than men). It's not strictly confined to HMDs, hence why I also said that I was able to induce it in people watching a large screen (a large screen was important though, because it ramps up the peripheral vision cues, I had considerably less luck with normal computer monitors). You can even see it in entertainment games; the center dot added to Mirror's Edge was because the camera roll motion could induce nausea when you were close to the screen. In some sense it worked as an artificial reference point. Outside the tv or computer monitor also works as a reference point, but you don't have that in an HMD and you have more peripheral movement cues.

There's a paper by Laviola Jr that names a number of problems, although it's not conclusive. I think it's freely accessible.

PS none of my points have been proven wrong.
 

spekkeh

Banned
As a scientist I do find it a bit concerning how quick you are to dismiss something you have neither tried nor have any halfway decent data set to warrant that dismissal either.
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. Considering myself somewhat knowledgeable on the matter, I say an eradication of simulator sickness from VR is quite the extraordinary claim, seeing as, as far as I know, the military never even achieved it. That's not to say it's not true. I never outright dismissed it, I said 'I want to see the receipts'. Surely wanting to test claims is more scientific than going by anecdotal evidence.
 
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. Considering myself somewhat knowledgeable on the matter, I say an eradication of simulator sickness from VR is quite the extraordinary claim, seeing as, as far as I know, the military never even achieved it. That's not to say it's not true. I never outright dismissed it, I said 'I want to see the receipts'. Surely wanting to test claims is more scientific than going by anecdotal evidence.

Is the military still researching such areas though?
Could it have been that they ditched the idea a long time ago since the technology wasn't advanced enough for them to even try back then? Unless they're still trying to this day that is? Military simulations that were used a few years ago never looked as good as state of the art graphics engines used in games for example. My point is that the military maybe didn't think VR as such was anything worth trying to take to the next level. And if game companies are or were ahead of them in terms of visuals why couldn't this also be true?
 

Zaptruder

Banned
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. Considering myself somewhat knowledgeable on the matter, I say an eradication of simulator sickness from VR is quite the extraordinary claim, seeing as, as far as I know, the military never even achieved it. That's not to say it's not true. I never outright dismissed it, I said 'I want to see the receipts'. Surely wanting to test claims is more scientific than going by anecdotal evidence.

The most extraordinary claim here been made is your insinuation that the problems of VR are not tractable... and thus will continue to reemerge decade after decade each time going to ground after the fad is over.

It seems with the credible reports of hundreds of individuals out of CES 2014, and the amount of research and resources been poured into this problem - that some of the more difficult issues associated with VR headsets may have finally been satisfactorily solved.

Which leaves criticisms about its social reaction - i.e. it's too big, too isolating - as more salient (but still weak) about VR in general.

Also I'd say the inability to look away from a VR simulation is only a significant factor when the simulation is also causing all the aforementioned motion sickness issues - and when the headset is difficult to remove (as can be the case for some R&D headsets).
 

ido

Member
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. Considering myself somewhat knowledgeable on the matter, I say an eradication of simulator sickness from VR is quite the extraordinary claim, seeing as, as far as I know, the military never even achieved it. That's not to say it's not true. I never outright dismissed it, I said 'I want to see the receipts'. Surely wanting to test claims is more scientific than going by anecdotal evidence.

You aren't knowledgable on the matter if you are talking about a device you have never tried, or tested on anyone.

Palmer Luckey actually worked with VR under the military umbrella before creating the Rift. He tried and tested extraordinarily expensive HMDs like the Wide 5, and even gave reviews of them on MTBS. I trust his knowledge on the topic of HMDs very much, and from all reports we have so far(both internally from Oculus and from reporters and devs at CES), motion sickness no longer seems to be a big issue.

But you say you are skeptical, and want proof. That's fine. Here is some information from Abrash behind low persistence and Carmack on latency:

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-hole-fixing-judder/

http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2013/02/22/latency-mitigation-strategies/

Both of these major hurdles are being resolved with the Crystal Cove demo.

It's all really exciting.
 

BobTheSpy

Banned
I don't understand the current hype with VR. To me, it seems like another "3D" gimmick. And, people complained about how heavy and uncomfortable the 3D glasses are. VR headsets are at least 10X worst comparably. Until VR headsets get down to at least 3D glasses size, it will be going nowhere.

As someone who tried the Rift, I can say I literally did not notice the weight of the headset, and almost forgot I had it on. And newer VR headsets are likely to get even lighter and smaller - so trust me dude, comfort is not really an issue.
 
The hype train is faster than ever.
0b6.jpg
 

Javaman

Member
I thought this was pretty well documented thus far. Oculus has outlined clear reasons for why they feel people get cybersickness, as you call it, and have addressed it with their internal prototypes and current Crystal Cove demo. So far I have yet to read ANY impression of the latest demonstration that complained about any "cybersickness" or nausea. Just the opposite, in fact.


One possibility for few people complaining is that they were only testing it for a short period of time. Nausea induced due to the inner ear not matching up with perceived movements is going to be a larger issue than you think and will only get worse the more realistic the environment is.
 

Dr.Acula

Banned
I like to think of VR as like where smart phones were a decade ago.

Early VR units, or things like Virtua Boy were like the Palm Treo. Pretty much shit. Oculus Rift is poised to be the original iPhone. That "holy shit" moment where everyone out there realised their phones could do everything. The Rift may not be perfect, imagine going to an iPhone 1 right now. But remember what the iPhone 1 did.
 

spekkeh

Banned
You aren't knowledgable on the matter if you are talking about a device you have never tried, or tested on anyone.

Palmer Luckey actually worked with VR under the military umbrella before creating the Rift. He tried and tested extraordinarily expensive HMDs like the Wide 5, and even gave reviews of them on MTBS. I trust his knowledge on the topic of HMDs very much, and from all reports we have so far(both internally from Oculus and from reporters and devs at CES), motion sickness no longer seems to be a big issue.

But you say you are skeptical, and want proof. That's fine. Here is some information from Abrash behind low persistence and Carmack on latency:

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-hole-fixing-judder/

http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2013/02/22/latency-mitigation-strategies/

Both of these major hurdles are being resolved with the Crystal Cove demo.

It's all really exciting.
I wouldn't be knowledgeable even if I had tried it because I am not particularly prone to simulator sickness, is what I'm trying to say. I'm just like the tech enthusiasts who have been through all this stuff, I've attenuated through thirty years of gameplay. For the record I am really impressed how they ostensibly solved all the judder and latency issues. I must reiterate the peripheral vision cues leading to vection that everyone seems to ignore but still And maybe that really does solve the problem to a degree that it's no more sickness inducing than normal games. And I agree that would be incredibly exciting and a major hurdle taken. It just speaks against scientific experiments.

In any case now I am really derailing this thread, so I'll leave it here.
 

GraveHorizon

poop meter feature creep
I read a book very similar to this when I was in high school, forget the name. The earth is completely rundown and most people have downloaded themselves into a virtual world, but there are "natural" people that won't do it; you can imagine the rest. Sort of like the matrix, but the opposite in some ways.

I read a series about Traveling to different worlds, and one world was basically ours with one major different: virtual reality simulators. The quality was lifelike, and the tech was called Lifelight. Anyone inside it got everything they wanted (while conforming to real world logic and reasoning), which led to the problem of everyone wanting to be in it all the time. This in turn resulted in the crumbling of society. People spent every free moment inside Lifelight, because real life just couldn't compete with virtual perfection.

Looking forward to it!
 

Froli

Member
YES! it's coming together :D
We are so lucky to witness the advancement of VR technology and be a part of it this coming years.
 

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.

We talking about finding life on Mars here or something? The industry as a whole has responded very positively to the Rift and even more so with the Crystal Cove prototype. But I guess you've got a whole year until the Rift is released to play devils advocate.
 
Why does the market seemed so focused on consumer models? Wouldn't arcade units be a great way to get the public interested while allowing to continue work on cost saving methods?
 
In like 2020 many People could start to have a room just for VR. In there is a quad sli high end pc (300tflop power), a floor working as a big treadmill, 4 cams around you to track everything you do, maybe you can wear somethings that is connected with some machines to simulate haptic/force feedback??, something that simulates wind, maybe something that can simulate scents??

I think the hardest and most important thing for VR in the future will be to give Feedback if you touch something inside the VR. No idea how to realize that in a good and usable way.


U should watch the movie: Surrogates
 

DJ88

Member

Fascinating fascinating read! Someone else said it here, I'm so grateful to be alive during these huge paradigm shifts in entertainment. From the internet, to mobiles, and soon to be VR. I actually desperately want to be a part of it and contribute to it in some way. Some truly amazing and scary times ahead indeed.

Oh and checkout the positional tracking setup they had for their demos, basically the inverse of the more consumer friendly solution the Crystal Cove was using.

iBGIZuFB2NBWB.png
 
Conspiracy theory time.

Valve is designing HL3 with ful VR in mind. Its non-VR version will be a shell of the real game.

Valve says VR will have its doom moment in 2015 because Valve is in fact revealing or releasing its doom equivalent in 2015 for VR (read HL3).

I was honestly thinking this too when I heard about the VR demo they had. It would just make too much sense.

Also, "Presence" is a very slick word for this, I like it.
 
Only with strobing, at which point you need at least ~80 FPS.
Crystal Cove was running at 72 Hz. Was anyone complaining about flicker? Anyone at all?


I think 3200x1600 if you want 1k visible resolution per eye (the optics distort the edges of the screen resulting in a very blurry low resolution image, so the effective area that you actually see is much smaller)

I do think the optics will improve, and the visible area on screen will get better in the consumer VR devices, but higher resolution is always better.
If you can only see the green stuff, why do they waste time rendering the rest of the scene?


That's roughly 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 meters, which isn't really walking around space. Seems like enough space to move your head around in most directions from a seated position, or ducking and dodging from a standing position. I read it as "wiggle room".
That's two cubic meters. The slide calls for two meters cubed, so eight cubic meters.


I see that you have no idea what you are talking about. Oculus Rift lenses are focused on small part of screen.
http://martincaine.com/files/images/2013-06-23_oculus_rift_vorpx_witch.jpg

As you can see, a lot of pixels [black ones] are wasted. Users can even see them, so VorpX decided to put a black overlay over them.


Oculus Rift with its current lenses would need to have 1600p screen [or a little better] to provide resolution that Valve wants.
If you're claiming they're calling for a visible area 1000 pixels across — and that may well be what they're calling for — you'd only need to render ~785K pixels per eye.

And last I checked, a circle with a diameter of 1000 units fits rather nicely in a square 1000 units wide, so I don't see why you'd need more than a 1MP display.
 

Vaporak

Member
I wish the HW guys were more focused on increasing FoV, for me at least I foresee that being significantly more of a problem than resolution or FPS given that I already get motion sick from low FoV on a monitor.
 
I read a series about Traveling to different worlds, and one world was basically ours with one major different: virtual reality simulators. The quality was lifelike, and the tech was called Lifelight. Anyone inside it got everything they wanted (while conforming to real world logic and reasoning), which led to the problem of everyone wanting to be in it all the time. This in turn resulted in the crumbling of society. People spent every free moment inside Lifelight, because real life just couldn't compete with virtual perfection.

Looking forward to it!

Series was called pendragon. In one of the later books,
He spends the whole time on an low-tech world before travelling a large distance and finding the lifelight facility, at which point he realized this world was located in the future of the other.
 

Desty

Banned
You'll need to control virtual hands to have a presence in a game world.

Exactly. As soon as you have head controlled viewing you really want to just grab stuff and walk around. They need some kind of kinect like device built into the front so you could potentially put your hands in front and extract the pose. Also, you could do awesome augmented reality if you had a 3D map of what is in front of you. A guy in Japan did a project like that. It was pretty rad.

Also, I am sure Sony is just waiting in the wings with their own VR headset for PS4 if needed.
 
After getting feelings of nausea trying out the Oculus Rift (and that was after 30 seconds) I remain skeptical.

Plus, I don't get how they want to solve the problem of moving around and manipulating objects with your hands.

Everything I have seen so far tackling these problems looked kind of silly (who wants to stand in some kind of hamster cage for playing battlefield?)
 

Zarovitch

Member
After getting feelings of nausea trying out the Oculus Rift (and that was after 30 seconds) I remain skeptical.

Plus, I don't get how they want to solve the problem of moving around and manipulating objects with your hands.

Everything I have seen so far tackling these problems looked kind of silly (who wants to stand in some kind of hamster cage for playing battlefield?)

Do you try the new kit?
With the better resolution and the cam tracking it supposed to help a lot for the nausea.
 
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